THE THINGS I DO…

I’ve found that having a written or  ”shot list” for events is counter-productive to my creativity. That’s right, instead of being a helpful reference, I find it becomes a subconscious shopping list that hinders my creativity. For example, during a recent wedding I photographed, I had already made the “usual” pre-wedding shot of the couple’s rings. It was the standard stuff, sharp, cake in background, nicely composed…but boring. Had I been satisfied with this photo and checked it off my mental shot list, I wouldn’t have been looking for something better that presented itself later, during the reception.

By not checking this shot off that list, I kept looking for a way to improve upon it when the situation above presented itself for a few scant moments. I quickly moved in and snapped the photo above.  I think it’s much more creative and “different” for my clients. I liked it so much that I never showed them the earlier photos. So, be careful when using a shot list. Don’t let it become a checklist that squelches your creative process.

Having just finished a day-long wedding shoot, I plan to share some tips of the trade with you in the next few blog posts. Today’s tip is to shoot in RAW format. I’ve extolled on the virtues of this format here many times before and can’t emphasize enough the importance of shooting events in RAW.

Having shot my share of events on film, I’ve gotta tell you my stress level’s a lot lower since I switched to digital. No more agonizing over whether I successfully captured a tricky lighting situation or not. With digital, I will know immediately whether or not the shot is a keeper.  Plus, shooting in RAW gives me even more confidence to try making photos I wouldn’t have considered shooting on film. The photo posted here was taken at the end of the reception as things were winding down. I wanted to shoot something that captured the dance floor a bit more artistically than the flash-blur photos I had been shooting all evening.  I figured I had nothing to lose but a few pixels, so I experimented a bit.

The venue lighting was tricky and called for a long exposure (1 second) to bring out the details of the tent and the dancers. I also wanted to move the camera a bit while popping a flash from the far left side to partially freeze the dancers and add some motion to the dance lights. Did I mention that this was shot during the last dance of the evening? That’s where RAW saved me time and allowed me to shoot fast with enough time to concentrate on my photography and make the shot when the dancers were in the right place. The wider exposure latitude provided by RAW allowed me to fix a lot of the problems in post-processing that I wouldn’t have been able to save had I shot this on JPEG format. For example, I bumped up the color saturation of the dance lights increased the clarity and brought back some of the detail in the blown-out highlights during post-processing.

Now that RAW has become the only format I use, I find I experiment much more than I used to and those experiments, as you see, sometimes turn out pretty well.